Tuesday 10 March 2015

The theory of Everything & Still Alice



In the last two weeks I have been to see the movie about Stephen Hawking "The Theory of Everything" and one about a linguistics professor who is devastatingly diagnosed with early onset Alzheimers, "Still Alice"
As I sat down to watch "Still Alice" I thought to myself that it would be in stark contrast to "The Theory of Everything" but it didn't take long to realise that both movies were about very clever people challenged by serious illness while still young.
Seeing the two in close succession was an interesting, unintended study in the difference between losing one's physical abilities and losing one's mind.
It was painful to watch Stephen Hawking bump down the staircase in his home on his bum, possibly worse to watch when his friends had to carry him up stairs and go back for the wheelchair while he lay in the arms of a statue. It was confronting when he was lifted from the toilet and deeply sad to see a family friend start to play a fatherly role with his children.
Even through his loss of physical function Stephen hawking retains his intelligence, he has some wit and humour that he expresses in the film and even though his body is humiliatingly unco-operative he has managed to have a successful career through decades of severe disability.

One of Alice's hugely painful moments is when she is told the comments made by her students regarding her lectures. Alice has become more confused than she had realised and her performance as a professor is inadequate. She attempts to reassure her boss that she is still a contributing faculty member but he tactfully suggests that her time is up. It is an abrupt and cruel end to a stellar career.
She is humiliated again when she can't remember where to find the bathroom in her own house and thoroughly wets herself. Most painfully of all, perhaps, at one point she talks about how she is losing her identity, she talks about how she appears to be fumbling and incompetent but it is not her who is incompetent, it is her disease.

The film talks about the way that Alzheimers patients find comfort in doing things that were a huge part of their, now waning, identity and I wondered, if I had Alzheimers, what would I find comfort in? What is so much a part of my identity that I could do it and enjoy it even as my mind slowly vacated my body?

I liked both films and would recommend them both. Neither is fluffily escapist but neither is bleakly disturbing either.


14 comments:

  1. No Kailie, neither is for me. I am too sensitive!

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  2. Ramana,
    I think somehow that you have seen plenty of confronting things in life!
    but maybe that's why you don't want to see anymore?

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  3. I haven't seen either, but read Still Alice. Which haunts me still. Dementia (of any type) scares me. Such a cruel illness, taking the person away, and leaving their body behind. It is one of the possible manifestations of my own illness which I really, really hope doesn't happen.

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  4. There's a lot said anymore about people with Alzheimer's still being themselves, but I can't see it. I can imagine wanting to stay alive as Hawking, but to stay alive with Alzheimer's would be more than I would opt for.

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  5. P.S.

    "I haven't seen either, but read Still Alice. Which haunts me still."

    Never would I read the book or see the movie either said the cat with the curly horn--or maybe it was a sheep...Oh, my God, my brain is wasting away even as I sit here!

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  6. EC
    i truly hope you dont develop dementia!

    snow,
    is it possible that your brain wasted away some time ago?

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  7. As you know, my sister has had MND for around ten years. Although she can't speak or walk and can barely swallow, she still gets a lot of pleasure out of life because her mind is still 100%, she can read and she has loads of internet friends she keeps in touch with.

    I would hate to develop Alzheimer's, and I would hate the fact that Jenny and others would have to care for me, possibly for many years.

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  8. Nick,
    I think our worlds shrink as we age but the hard part of MND or things like it, is the prematurity of the shrinkage.
    I'm pleased Heather finds life worth living.

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  9. "is it possible that your brain wasted away some time ago?"

    I guess I should take that to mean that my bid for flattery and reassurance fell upon a deaf ear, maybe even two of them.

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  10. snow, you need to know that i will never knowingly flatter someone who is making a bid for it.

    :)

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  11. "snow, you need to know that i will never knowingly flatter someone who is making a bid for it."

    Okay, I'm quiet now. Yessirree, not saying a thing. Just sitting here, quietly...

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